by Jen Kirchner
Grandpa’s tall, lean form looked good in a sweater and trousers with conservative leather shoes. The light tones of his clothing contrasted nicely with his dark skin.
My godfather, Moons, was a little shorter with skin a few shades lighter. He was Grandpa’s polar opposite in a pair of black satin pants, sneakers with gold laces, and a hot pink shirt that had I WORK THE POLE! splashed across the chest in gold cursive lettering. He held a can of shaving cream in one hand, which I assumed was empty because the remaining foamy contents stood high on his head in a wilted mohawk.
He caught me staring at his outfit. A sly smile spread across his lips. “Do not worry. I have a matching shirt for you.”
He set down the can and moved to the couch. He grabbed something from a stack of folded clothes and shook it out for me. It was the sweatshirt version of his T-shirt. I walked over to him.
I was acutely aware of how long it had been since I’d seen my family, let alone talked to them. We’d never been separated for so long, and now they’d all dropped everything in their lives and come all the way out here. For me.
A lump formed in my throat as I took the sweatshirt. My voice choked with the threat of tears. “Thank you, Moons.”
He frowned.
Grandpa slid his arm around my shoulders. “I know. That sweatshirt is hideous.”
I sniffled. “It’s not that. I just realized how much I missed everyone.”
“Separating us was Hakobyan’s plan from the start,” Heraclitus grumbled. “Once our communication was broken, he knew we would fall apart.”
“And we did,” I said. “Now, Norayr has my magic and Stubby. And Henri Boisseau can fill in any gaps. We have to find them and switch my magic back.”
Grandpa sat down on the couch. His expression sobered. “Is that possible? What do we know about Rambo?”
I glanced around the room, trying to decide whether I wanted to explain. This wasn’t something that I discussed often, not even with my family. Grandpa and Moons knew about it, and obviously Brad. I’d kept it from the rest of my family because my magic had always felt like my most precious secret. However, if they were going to help me, they needed to know.
I said, “Rambo’s kind of special. And my magic is kind of special. There’s something about them that goes together. Only Rambo can make the switch. I don’t know much more than that.”
Dad shifted uncomfortably on the couch. “I have been researching Rambo since I first saw it three months ago.”
All attention snapped in Dad’s direction. Mikelis’s eyes narrowed.
Dad shrugged. “I cannot say that I have done an exhaustive search, but now that I am no longer serving the Council, I have more free time. I have used it to try to uncover the knife’s purpose. There are no written records of a fourth knife—of that, I am certain. Nor will my knives speak of it.”
Marcus’s brows lifted in surprise. “You asked?”
“They said the way was closed to me. They would say no more.” Dad’s lips pursed in a thin-lipped smile.
“So, you hit a dead end,” I said.
“Possibly. There is a cave in France containing paintings thought to be almost 30,000 years old. One depicts a battle and contains a large knife with a jagged edge. Most researchers believe it is just a typical necromancer knife and that the cave wall has worn away over time and given the knife teeth. I am not so sure.” He shrugged. “The painting is old. It is difficult to say.”
I couldn’t shake the idea that Dad knew more than he was letting on, although I had to admit that I was having a rough night, and my intuition was very, very off.
Uncle Rick looked thoughtful. “Now that you have Rambo back in your custody, what would happen if Norayr tried to use a different knife and take your magic for himself?”
“It would be gone,” I said. “Only Rambo can make the switch. My magic would be…” My voice trailed off. I couldn’t say the word.
“It would just be gone,” Mikelis said. His voice sounded so casual. Like we’d missed a sale on discount underwear. “We couldn’t get it back.”
Heraclitus raised his index finger in the air. “Would he be able to access the magic through the girl somehow? Voodoo has proven to be quite adaptable and manipulative of people, and can be easy to use.”
Mikelis shrugged. “It’s possible, but voodoo mimics necromancy, so he’d have to find a sacrifice powerful enough to fuel the spell. For something like that, I’d guess the sacrifice would have to be human or even immortal.”
The speculation was freaking me out. “We need to find them and get my magic back.”
“And if you cannot?” Marcus asked. “Then what?”
The room fell silent. Everyone watched me. No one jumped in with their thoughts or plans.
My magic was causing a lot of problems. People were losing their minds over the potential to create new magic and rewrite or restrict the old—and they were willing to kill each other over it. I didn’t want to lose my magic, but the thought of people dying because of it was even worse. I couldn’t let that happen.
“Then,” I said, hearing the slight tremble in my voice, “we need to make sure my magic is lost.”
No one spoke. I looked over at Mikelis. He just watched me, expressionless, and started playing with the ends of my hair.
If no one could access my magic, this would all go away. People would calm down. Over time, it would be forgotten completely. This threat of war would be gone.
Marcus folded his hands in his lap. “And if you do get your magic back?”
“I—I don’t—” I stammered, and glanced around at my family gathered around me. This felt surreal. As long as people like Norayr Hakobyan thought that my magic was within their grasp, they’d never stop coming for me.
My voice was soft. “I’d need to disappear. Forever.”
Marcus nodded. “I still have our plans for exile locked away in my office safe. I believe our list of livable areas is included in the file.” He stood and smoothed out his slacks. “I will prepare us for this while everyone searches for Norayr and Henri, in case it becomes our only option.”
“Wait a minute,” Brad said. “You planned for this?”
Grandpa, Moons, and Heraclitus nodded. Dad smiled.
Uncle Rick frowned but said nothing.
Grandpa nodded. “When we declared you and Eliana as family, we made contingency plans in case the situation became dangerous. After all, we were raising a necromancer in secret. We suspected this sort of outcome.”
Brad’s mouth opened and he sputtered a response, but nothing intelligible came out. Finally, he said, “I couldn’t go with you. I’m…” He gestured at Uncle Rick. “Our whole lives are here. The band is here.”
The band. It was Brad’s baby. His everything. The guys were talented, and I had to admit, they’d probably find even greater success with a lead singer who didn’t have such personal baggage.
“I won’t be used as a weapon,” I said. “It’s against everything I stand for.”
He sighed and looked down at his feet, defeated. “I get it.”
Mikelis squeezed my shoulder, then stood. “We haven’t decided anything yet. We need to find Norayr and Henri first.”
I looked up at him, surprised. “We?”
He shrugged and smiled. “It took me this long to find you, Kari. I’m not letting you go now. And I have a few ideas on where to start looking.”
“So do I,” Uncle Rick said. He reached into his pocket and grabbed his car keys. “I don’t like this, but I think you’re doing the right thing, kiddo.”
Moons nodded. “We should split up for now. Eliana, stay here and watch your mother. The rest of us should meet back here in…” He glanced at his watch. “…ten hours?”
I jumped up from the couch. “What? No way. This is my problem—I won’t be sidelined while everyone else tries to fix it. Give me an assignment.”
To Mikelis’s credit, he tried to look like the idea didn’t bother him, but he was failin
g.
Moons frowned. “Eliana, this could be very dangerous. You know we wholeheartedly support your pacifism and would never ask you to compromise your values.”
He cleared his throat. That was his way of gearing up for the part I didn’t want to hear.
“However, you were almost killed defending yourself against the necromancer, and now we are going against a trained Intelligence agent assisted by Henri and your third knife, Stubby. You could be killed.”
I shook my head. “This is my problem, and I’m going to be a part of the solution. I’ve spent too long letting everyone else handle my problems. I appreciate that no one’s complained about it before, but now that I want to fix things, no one wants me to get involved. You can either give me a mission or I’ll find one without you. Pick your poison.”
Moons blinked at me, and his eyes flickered with frustration and sternness—two emotions I didn’t see often from him. But as soon as they came, they were gone.
He smiled. “Very well.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
“This is stupid,” I said for the fifth time. “There’s nothing happening here.”
“Yep.”
Brad didn’t even look up. He just kept staring at his phone while bobbing his head in time to the soft beats barely heard through the tiny speakers of Heraclitus’s ancient sedan.
“Uh huh.”
I squinted at the scene across the street. It was early in the morning and no one in the neighborhood was awake. Aside from the blue access spell slithering around my fence, my house was dark and still.
Heraclitus’s car was cold and uncomfortable, and I was hungry again, not to mention agitated. It sounded reasonable that Norayr and Henri would want to steal my notebook of researched magic powers, but it obviously hadn’t happened. Stubby probably hadn’t even told them about the notebook.
Dad wasn’t wearing his end of the telepath spell again—and it was most likely intentional. He probably knew that I’d use our connection to join them in their search for Norayr, something they wanted to keep me far away from.
That’s why I was stuck at my house on stakeout duty, where I was only in danger of being bored to death. Death Radar was mostly empty; the only signal I could detect was Intelligence Officer Ronel van Niekerk, a couple of blocks away, bobbing in and out at the edge of my newly curtailed senses. I didn’t know what she was doing, other than being annoying.
Beyond that, nothing moved. No one was returning to the scene of this crime.
“The only reason they sent us here is to keep us away from the real action,” I said.
“Yep.” Brad started typing on his phone again.
I tried getting a peek at his screen. What was he reading? He was slumped in the corner of the driver’s seat, holding the phone at an angle so I couldn’t see. For a few minutes, I fantasized about slapping the phone out of his hands. I’m not above fantasizing.
“Aren’t you bothered that you’re sitting here instead of doing something productive like everyone else?” I asked.
No response. Just more typing on his phone.
“What’s going on with you lately?” I paused. “Are you seeing someone and you didn’t tell me?”
Brad blinked. Slow. His chin lifted, and our eyes locked. Silence crept over the car. It was hard to read his expression; the light of his phone illuminated his chin and slashed upward, and he looked like someone about to tell a scary story.
“I’m distracting myself so that I’m not actively annoyed with you.”
I twisted in the seat to face him. “Excuse me?”
“You heard me. You’re being stingy with first-channel spells, and now the whole channel’s screwed up. No one wants me near the action because I can’t defend myself. Suddenly, I’m a liability. Even Heraclitus was sidelined—he used to be part of the expedition party. Now he’s stuck at the cabin, babysitting Aunt Isadora.”
“Someone has to stay with my mom, and Heraclitus knows a lot about her condition.”
“Keep telling yourself that, if it makes you feel better.” He returned his attention to his phone, effectively dismissing me.
I sighed and sat back hard against the seat and folded my arms across my chest. “What are you doing?”
He glanced up at me, then back at his phone. “I’m looking for that cave painting Uncle Diaco was talking about.”
“The one that shows another fourth knife, like Rambo?”
“Yep.”
I gave him a shifty-eyed glare. “Why?”
He held up his phone so I could see the screen. “I think Uncle Diaco isn’t telling us everything he’s learned about Rambo.”
I’d had the same feeling. In fact, I also had a bad feeling about Dad touching Rambo… and dropping it.
However, I’d been so distracted with the loss of my magic that I hadn’t been able to focus on much else. I recalled the image of my dad bending down, reaching out, and touching the thick, black handle… His reaction was suspect.
So far, I hadn’t mustered the guts to ask him about it. The secrets Rambo held, I probably didn’t want to know.
I leaned over for a better look at Brad’s screen. The picture was small, but I recognized it from Dad’s description as the cave art he thought might be the first recording of a fourth necromancer knife.
At the bottom of the painting there were three groups of people, all painted in red. At the top, there were two red stick figures, obviously the most important in the painting, as they were each at least three times the size of the ones below. One of the large figures was drawn laterally, lying on a table or some kind of platform. The other stood at the head of the table; it held a knife, the only object in the painting that was black, drawn to an even more exaggerated size than the large figures.
Brad pulled the phone back and enlarged the knife. He showed it to me again and pointed out the area where the rock was jagged, giving the blade teeth. At the base of the blade, the artist had painted an exaggerated hook.
“It looks like Rambo,” I agreed.
Brad zoomed out so we could look at the painting in full again. “This particular cave painting isn’t as popular or heavily studied because there are a lot of older ones involving necromancers. But it’s the only one that shows a necromancer actively sacrificing someone to win a battle.”
He looked at me, as if waiting for my reaction to that conclusion.
I wrinkled my nose and leaned in closer to the picture. “You’re sure this is a battle scene?”
“Researchers and historians seem to think so.”
“How would a sacrifice secure victory on the battlefield?” I mused. “Unless the necromancer didn’t have the appropriate power before the battle started. But that’s weird. Why wouldn’t they be prepared?”
We went quiet for a moment, staring at the picture.
“Okay, what if this isn’t a battle scene?” Brad asked. “What if that knife is like Rambo?”
“Then I’d want to know what they were using it for. You?”
“I’d want to know who’s lying on that table.”
I hated the way he said it and the way his gaze fixated on me. Like he already had an idea of who was lying on that table. Like he could see me lying on it, covered in my own blood and guts.
“Why do you say it like that?” I demanded. “Why do you always have to assume the worst?”
His eyes narrowed, and he propped one wrist on top of his steering wheel. “Because protecting you is my life’s priority. It always has been and it always will be.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I snapped.
“It means you have a tendency to run toward whatever’s trying to kill you, you lemming.”
“You know what, Brad? I’m glad—”
New movement on Death Radar rippled across my brain, pushing away any thoughts of paintings, knives like Rambo, and Brad acting like an insensitive jerk. I smacked the phone from his hand, sending it flying across the car.
“What the—”
&
nbsp; I turned off the radio, then dove under the dash, dragging Brad with me.
“Quiet! It’s Henri.”
“What?” He tried poking his head up to see but I pulled him back down again.
“Henri Boisseau, the conservator who—”
“I know who he is,” Brad interrupted. He started out in a harsh whisper, but as he rambled on, he grew louder and angrier. “He’s the conservator who attacked my dad and turned him immortal, and he almost killed him, and you—”
“Shh! He’ll hear you.” I was back to whisper-shouting, but it was at least quieter than Brad.
“He’s not going to hear us inside the car, all the way over here,” Brad whisper-shouted back. “Immortal hearing isn’t that great.”
We were parked on the adjacent street, where Ronel and Norayr had been staking out my house, so it was pretty unlikely that Henri would hear us. However, I was excited. Whispering seemed like the covert thing to do.
The signal crept out from the woods behind my house and slid around the left side, staying close to my fence.
“Here he comes,” I whispered.
Brad and I raised our heads just enough to peek over the dash. Brad pressed his fingers to the back of my hand, sharing my ability to see active magic.
The street was shadowed. Dawn was taking its sweet time, and the dim light couldn’t penetrate the thick layers of trees encircling my street. Henri skirted between the hedge and the sidewalk. We wouldn’t have seen him except for the bright blue spell string that wrapped around him like a suit of armor.
Crouched behind the dashboard, we watched Henri make his way around to the front of my house and stop in front of the call box at my gate. He paused. He paced back and forth. He stopped at the call box again. He moved to the far side of the house and crept up my neighbor’s lawn, up to my fence. Then he came back to the call box and paced around again. What was he doing? Was he trying to get inside?